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Character Journeys: Nana the Unbreakable
Throughout Elfen Lied, we have seen many characters who, under the horrific circumstances of the world they live in, eventually broke, sometimes even succumbed to the darkness. Nana is, however, as close she was to that abyss, one of the most notable exceptions in the whole of both versions of the story. She is perhaps the strangest case of a character archetype in this tale: The Pollyanna. An unfailing optimist, Nana is a girl with an unbreakable hope that things will get better. Such an outlook, for the most part in the series, is brutally deconstructed and destroyed multiple times. Lucy's desire for love and companionship is met with betrayal and deceit, breaking her mind to the point her hopes for a happy conclusion end up dashed by her mistakes, for which she's ultimately unable to atone for in life completely. Kurama's decision to do what he saw as necessary brings him to ruin as he finds that his human heart is hypocritically unable to terminate his daughter. Yuka's dream of a fairytale reunion with Kouta is ground to dust when she finds her dream boy had become a shell of his former self. The list goes on. When Nana is first introduced, she had already spent seven years locked up in the Diclonius Research Institute, subjected to inhuman conditions and treated as little more than a test subject for brutal experiments. Yet, unlike so many sharing her fate, she does not break under the pressure. She managed to find a rock, a foundation to hold onto to retain her sanity. That rock was Kurama, her "Papa". That man was the only person in that nightmarish facility that treated her with any semblance of kindness. As a result of that, Nana developed a strong emotional dependence on him, this bond helping her endure the harsh conditions of her life up to that point. This also made Nana a very docile and loyal person, willing to do anything for him. This loyalty will come to the first real test when Kurama came to her cell to give her a grim order: Kill Lucy. Despite her deep loyalty, she steadfastly refused, valuing the ideals Kurama instilled on her over obeying a direct order. In turn, this seems to have made him rethink his goal, and instead opted to tell her to simply locate her and secure her for capture. With that as her new directive, Nana was fielded into the city to confront Lucy. After finding her, she contacted Kurama and, decided to impress him, set out to face her on her own, and a brutal psychic duel ensued. However, her enthusiasm for pleasing Kurama, coupled by both her own inexperience and docile nature, caused her to waver in a critical moment, which the ruthless Lucy capitalized by savagely ripping her limbs off. After the horrific experience, Nana was evacuated and kept hidden by Kurama, fearing repercussions from Kakuzawa. The Chief, however, ordered him to dispose of Nana as soon as possible, leaving Kurama with limited options. In the meantime, she was outfitted with prosthetic limbs, and slowly learned how to manipulate them with her vectors, never once losing her optimism, even after such horrific trauma. Unfortunately, the ruse was soon found, and, under pressure from Kakuzawa, Kurama was forced to pretend to euthanize Nana, who Kakuzawa now saw as useless. Kurama acted quickly, pretending to administer a lethal injection to Nana, which instead contained a powerful sedative to put the girl to sleep. Nana, however, seems to have been aware to a degree of what Kurama pretended to do and, as he proceeded it, gave him a tearful goodbye before losing consciousness. The next time Nana opened her eyes, she was alone in the beach, having been shipped away into the shores of Kamakura, with nothing more than her dress, a note (or recording, depending on the version), and a purse full of money. Alone in a land she did not truly know, Nana was barely able to process her new situation before being attacked by Bando, who had mistakenly assumed she might have known Lucy's location. The argument escalated, and Bando viciously attacked her both physically and psychologically. The result of the realization of her newfound loneliness, added to Bando's casual cruelty, lead to a crack in Nana's optimism, and, perhaps for the first time, awoke the darkness she didn't even know she had within. In a seeming trance, perhaps even controlled by a dark influence, Nana stood up, stating that at Bando's cold words of her being unwanted to the world, she would reply by carving a place for herself, killing all who opposed her. A fight between the two ensued, and while Nana quickly gained the upper hand and cornered him, a surprise attack from Bando helped to snap Nana back to her senses, and to fearful tears as her loneliness fully processed within her. This incident is the first hint that there's something not entirely right with Nana, and would not be the last that she'd enter a Lucy-esque trance. After a brief talk, where both seemed to reach an understanding of their common enmity towards Lucy, the young silpelit embarked on a quest to explore the world she had so suddenly been flung into. Lost and confused, Nana walked through the city, exposed to the harshness of the real world, as she was victim of prejudice, not racial (As Bando had hurled at her), but class-based, being looked down upon by appearing a seeming vagrant without a home, her own cluelessness to the vast amounts of money in her possession also leading to her being dismissed by her attempts at buying food, eventually even using some to light a small fire in the graveyard to keep herself warm. Lost and alone, it was practically a small miracle that lead her to stumble her way to Wanta and Mayu, who she quickly befriended. Through Mayu, Nana would have her first understanding of the real world, and would be introduced to a life of regular comforts that she was denied all her life. However, her entry into a new life at Maple House was not without its pitfalls. After all, that house, she soon discovered, also harbored her nemesis, the one person who took her limbs from her. After a brief scuffle, which lead to major misunderstandings, Nana came to live at Maple House with Mayu, discovering her once dangerous enemy was now a harmless woman-child with the innocence of a toddler. Through all these events, Nana wavered. After her initial breakdown against Bando, she remained lost and uncertain, not sure what would happen to her in the future. Her meeting with Mayu, and the events that would lead her to join the slowly growing family at Maple House marked a return of her hope, and perhaps the strengthening of her idealism, as she came to believe happiness was, indeed, fully available for her. Her newfound life, however, would be quickly challenged by a new tragedy, striking straight from her Papa's bleak past. While she was no friend of Bando, their common enmity against Lucy seems to have made him at least tolerable in Nana's eyes. This prompted her to visit him if at least to point out his cruel words from their fight now rung hollow. Their conversation, however, was swiftly interrupted by a sudden, overwhelming presence making itself known to her. Kakuzawa had learned of Kurama's betrayal and had decided to take matters into his own hands. As a result, he summoned the most dangerous Silpelit in the facility: Number 35, otherwise known as Mariko Kurama. Alerted by her overwhelming prescence, Nana left Bando, as well as her new family behind her, and moved to directly confront this new threat. Unfortunately, she underestimated the sheer range and raw power of her opponent, and spent most of the fight being essentially Mariko's punching bag. At least, until Mariko made the mistake of provoking Nana by threatening the life of her Papa, prompting a sudden, violent response from Nana that quickly turned the tables on the younger Diclonius. Once she had her cornered, though, her dark side surfaced again, stating her intent to "punish" Mariko for her "transgression". Any further actions, however, are cut short by the arrival of Kurama, who came to take responsibility for his hypocrisy and sins. Unfortunately, he chose to do so in the worst way possible, choosing to reveal the painful truth to both girls, that not only was Nana not his biological daughter, but that he worked killing many silpelits like the two, which he also tried when Mariko was born, only to have his wife try to prevent it, dying due to a hemorrhage after complications from Mariko's birth, and was only allowed to live under the condition Kurama never see her again, leaving her effectively at the Chief's whims. And then, upon revealing such crushing news, he immediately pulled a gun and tried to kill his biological daughter. Mariko, perhaps unsurprisingly, took the news by exploding into a violent rage, attacking Nana a second time. The fight further escalated as Bando and then the SAT intervened. However, the true turning point of the fight would be Kurama's decision to approach Mariko and embrace her as his daughter, declaring he loved her as such. Immediately afterward, an attack from the SAT forced Mariko to overexert herself to protect her father. The result of such strain causing her to enter a fugue state, akin to Lucy's innocent persona of "Nyuu". Seeing this, Kurama once again attempted to kill her, but this time, Nana stopped him. During the whole exchange between Kurama and Mariko, she felt a myriad of emotions. Horror at realizing she had genuinely thought of killing Mariko, heartbreak as Kurama told both girls the harsh truth, fear for her Papa's safety as he tried to fight, and then reason with his crazed and enraged daughter, but above it all, what shone most was her idealism, and the moral fiber that, despite wavering in some occasions, now reasserted itself back in full force as she urged Kurama to make peace with her, and disassembled his gun when he tried to shoot the incapacitated Mariko, demanding he took responsibility in teaching her right from wrong, just as he did with her. Her pleas ended up reaching Kurama at last, but sadly, this newfound realization would be cruelly cut short by the arrival of their nemesis. At first in her docile persona of Nyuu, she was awakened by the efforts of Kurama and the SAT to kill her, and soon set her sights on the small family, recalling "a debt" Kurama owed her. Lucy's revenge would wreak great grief, ending Mariko's life, even if at the cost of her horns, and with them, her seemingly permanent reversion into Nyuu. Upon this, Kurama moved to kill the now defenseless Nyuu, but Nana once again pleaded him to stop. She had seen and experienced happiness in Maple House, and has understood that Nyuu was part of that happiness for Kouta and the others. However, she also swore to her Papa that, if Lucy ever awoke again, he would kill her. A promise that, in retrospect, was arguably empty in itself. Another, arguably empty, promise, came from Nana's reflection on her role in Kurama's life, as she was, even if unintentionally, pretty much a replacement daughter. Nana rejected such a notion and, instead she sought to become "Papa's wife", a notion that Kurama seemed to absentmindedly accept. Finally, Nana returned to her home, deciding to wait when her papa was "in the mood" to come for her, while she decided to enjoy the time she had with her new family, with whom she'd continue to live peacefully for the next six months, enjoying a peaceful, happy life she never experienced before. A peace that would ultimately be destroyed by Kakuzawa's cruel machinations, starting a chain of events that nearly ended the peace at Maple House forever, and even the world itself. A chain that would start by bringing in the most repulsive being the series had in store. This cruel monster would casually break into Nana's home seeking to track Lucy, but in his failure, would turn his sadistic tendencies towards Nana, Mayu and even Wanta. Still, Nana was not intimidated, and although she fell easily after the Unknown Man attacked her, she none the less held the line, at least winning a tiny bit of time, giving Mayu the window of opportunity to call Bando and drive that vile being out, after which he proceeded to tend to Nana's wounds. When Nana aweoke, however, she was shaked by the realization of their vulnerability. After all, that monster had located them through tracking her prescence, which he was able to track after performing horrific experiments to turn one innocent silpelit into a tracking device, kept alive in agony to serve as a glorified tracking device. (TBC) Category:Article Category:Essays Category:Character Journeys Category:Nana Category:Story Related Category:Series Information